Buy it... if you expect a fair amount of chest-thumping aggression from the percussion and brass sections in a largely dissonant romp of brutally rhythmic stomping.

Avoid it... on the commercial album if you expect a well-rounded presentation of the music actually heard in the film, some of which wasn't even written by Danny Elfman at the time the album was arranged.

Elfman

Planet of the Apes: (Danny Elfman) When the original Planet of the Apes film of 1968 was adapted from Pierre Boulle's classic novel, it was transformed into an edgy and politically charged message. Tim Burton's 2001 screen adaptation of the story is a closer adaptation of the novel, less concerned with an overbearing political message and more in tune with the solid action of the original war story. While decent in its revised form, the execution of the second Planet of the Apes version didn't yield the same kind of appeal as a result of its lighter socio-political tone. The need for a surprise ending is tacked on with haste at the conclusion of Burton's picture, adding another layer of parallel universes that was perhaps obligatory, but still somewhat unsatisfying. For the bleak message of the 1968 film, newcomer Jerry Goldsmith wrote a percussive and dissonant score devoid of a memorable theme and inspired by the style of Alex North, whose popularity was reaching its heights at the time. Goldsmith's score worked very well in the context of the film, with a new, alienating form of scoring that was both foreign to the audience and foreign to his own career. It was the champion of post-modern scoring in the late 1960's, and decades later, the Goldsmith score for Planet of the Apes is both worshipped and shunned by film score collectors, often with few fans residing in the middle. Surprisingly, there was little debate about whatever similarities may or may not exist between Goldsmith's enduring score and Danny Elfman's 2001 musical interpretation of the story. At heart, the style of the two scores are not entirely different, with both utilizing creative percussion and tense dissonance, though Elfman took the liberty of substantially and aggressively boosting the orchestral might of the sound for the newest visit to the Planet of the Apes. He followed his standard tactic of choosing a small handful of major scenes throughout the film to score first, and once he had established the tone of his liking for those sequences (which included "The Hunt" and "Preparing for Battle"), he worked through the rest chronologically.

For the emphasized militaristic stance of this story, Elfman's score relies much more heavily on bombastic percussion and brass rather than the exotic route of creating a foreign sound for the socially inverted planet. Expectations had suggested that Elfman would take the latter route, producing a mysterious piece with exceedingly bizarre instrumentation. Interestingly, his score is built upon brutal rhythmic power rather than straight instrumental creativity. He does indeed provide a number of unique percussive effects throughout the score, led by the slapping, banging, and slashing tones of "Main Titles," but it should be noted that the film's final mix, often emphasizing sound effects over the music, obscures many of these interesting textures. This reality also reduces the effectiveness of the already less obvious thematic structures in Planet of the Apes. A rising series of extremely harsh, low range brass notes comprise a theme that suggests the rising of a new ape civilization, heard immediately in "Main Titles" and translated onto strings for a slightly melodramatic tone at the conclusion of "The Return." Even less obvious is a growling, low woodwind idea for General Thade's evil persona, though this theme is almost completely lost in the mix. In a larger sense, Elfman's score is better remembered for the three general styles of sound that he established based on those early scenes he tackled. The propulsive rhythms of the main theme are the first all-encompassing idea to represent the brutality of the species. Secondly, the hunting scenes during which the apes are chasing and rounding up the humans are among the most primitively toned, with gut-wrenching ferociousness and unrelenting timpani. The third rhythmic portion of the score is that which accompanies battle scenes further into the story, and these are the ones that present some of the most articulated thematic statements of the score. Themes come at a premium in this series of films, and no resemblance of Elfman's masterful talents in the area of harmony can be heard without some substantial digging. Even the tender moments of character reflection are handled with a somewhat oppressive tone.

The highlights of the score are ironically those that lay off the relentlessly pounding drums and cyclical brass motifs, despite the fact that those sounds are the heart and soul of the work. The cues for space travel, "Deep Space Launch" and the middle of "The Return," are delicately handled with an appropriate level of wonderment and foreshadowing. The first "Ape Suite" track finishes with an attractive, haunting performance on woodwinds, and "Escape from Ape City/The Legend" holds the only glimpse of heroic neatness in the score, utilizing a light choir for added color. Along with portions of the score's final two major cues, the optimistic tones for the human savior in the story are provided a sound not too much unlike the noble horns that Elfman would use in Spider-Man. Both "Old Flames" and "The Return" offer reflective, mellow, and very enjoyable rests from the action cues by exploring hints of exotic woodwind material. As for those nearly constant action cues, they can be described in two different ways, depending on the kind of Elfman enthusiast you are, as well as your tolerance for straight bombast without obvious theme or harmony. To the Elfman fan, the mass of Planet of the Apes will be described as "challengingly complex." The "complex" part should get no argument from anyone. This is an extremely layered and sophisticated composition. As for "challenging," well, that can easily be countered with the word "noisy." If nothing else, even Elfman's greatest critics must recognize that he has created a sheer amount of noise for Planet of the Apes that had overshadowed any other score of 2001 to that point, including Elliot Goldenthal's Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. For those who don't follow Elfman's career closely, the score, while it likely could have been effective in the film given the right mixing, is a headache waiting to happen on album. The viewpoint that the Planet of the Apes album contains not much more than drum beating monotony at high volumes is fine, as long as it is also recognized that the music is impressively constructed at its root. The only totally unlistenable track is the Paul Oakenfold remix at the end, with warped dialogue and unnecessary electronic droning and manipulation.

In regards to listenability, the Goldsmith and Elfman scores will be equally divisive on album. Elfman's work for the 2001 film is not entirely pleasant, outside of the few reflective moments described above. But it doesn't have to be pleasant in order to both function and impress, which Elfman's Planet of the Apes does far more aggressively than Goldsmith's original. There are several places in Elfman's score where, for only a matter of seconds, the music ceases its churning percussion and actually hits a note of harmony, and it's easy to get the impression that more sequences like this were not included on the album release. The story of Sony's soundtrack is an entirely other discussion. There were rumors swirling around online venues just prior to the film's release that 20th Century Fox executives were unhappy with Elfman's work and wanted a more accessible, heroic score for the film. Elfman was forced to deny all of these rumors, stating that Fox was actually satisfied enough with the music to say nothing about it (a good thing when dealing with modern studios). There was truth, however, to the hectic schedule of Sony's album release, however, which necessitated that Elfman rearrange his compositional schedule to accommodate their desired street date. With the score not yet finished, Elfman assembled the key cues he had already written for the film and then wrote the two "Ape Suite" tracks as elaboration on other music in the film (as well as expanding the "Main Titles" and "The Hunt") to simply pad the running time of the album. Interestingly, some of the music in the second suite ended up in the final cut of the film, a curious reversal of the norm for any composer. The "Main Title Deconstruction" (a self-described "reversal" of the cue, though it doesn't really sound that impressive), along with some of this other padding, makes the product a bit redundant. The sound quality of the presentation, even though Elfman added extra players to the brass and drum sections and recorded it in the spacious Newman Scoring Stage at Fox, is not as resounding as you'd expect. Choral accents are nearly drowned, and lost is the potential that deep male chanting could have added to this work. Overall, Elfman's score is difficult and complex barbarian bombast that will test the tolerance of mainstream ears. ***

Bias Check:

For Danny Elfman reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.13 (in 40 reviews) and the average viewer rating is 3.29 (in 93,023 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.